


wake up, brilliant boy, the sun rises here

by butterugh (urieskooki)



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internal Conflict, Love Confessions, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Minor Character Death, Model Chae Hyungwon, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Character Death, Slow Burn, a few minor cameos, implied showho, its all v lowkey tho, its not as deep as it looks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-22 21:36:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12491380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urieskooki/pseuds/butterugh
Summary: It's been five years by the time Hyungwon returns.





	wake up, brilliant boy, the sun rises here

**Author's Note:**

> WOW i never thought i would post this bc i didnt like it and wanted 2 do a lot of editing but?????? i dont think theres much i can do w/out rewriting the whole thing so here it is!!!! its been sitting in my docs for so long so i might as well do something with it for all the work i put in lol

It’s been five years by the time Hyungwon returns.

The town he’d grown up in is much the same as when he’d left - clogging, small and decrepit, barely enough people occupying it to keep the few stores afloat.

His mother glances at him from her bed, knuckles paperwhite on sheets that look cream in comparison. She hadn’t come to pick him up from the airport, hours away because there wasn’t one anywhere near the town, but he hadn’t expected nor wanted her to. He says hello as quietly as he can and leaves the room.

He unpacks his bags in his childhood room, placing everything in it’s proper place or in as close approximation as it should be: his coat (not the same as the one he’d had when he was seventeen but the same shade of green, the same mid-thigh length) hung carefully over the back of his desk chair, different phone with a different charger plugged into the same powerpoint he’d always liked slightly better than the other for no discernable reason. Put his suitcase where his backpack used to lie after school even though the closet was the tidier option.

He’s only been there half an hour but the house is starting to suffocate him with it’s blank whiteness and sterile hospital smell. He misses his city already, misses the dirt in the streets and the openly awful people. The ones who insult you to your face instead of behind your back.

Coming back reminds him of all the quiet tormentors. Of all the rumours that never quite reached him until they were too far spread to ever ignore. Of the whispers in the hall on his way to his next class.

_(Didn’t you hear?)_

Coming back reminds him of everything he left to escape.

_(“I heard that Chae Hyungwon guy’s a fucking pansy.”)_

But, still, he hasn’t had enough of reminiscing. Maybe he’s masochistic in that way.

_(“Yeah, he likes dick, doesn’t he? Prissy little fuck. Shit, he’s coming over. Don’t say anything - I’ve got work tonight. Can’t afford to get another detention.”)_

“I’ll be a few hours.” He’ll bring home dinner but she won’t eat it; she’s lost so much weight since he left. He can’t stand to see it, so he leaves instead.

It’s selfish, but that’s always how they thought of him here, so maybe it’s the most genuine he’s been since he arrived.

He takes his rental car and drives around the town for ten minutes (that’s all it takes to complete a full circle) before a familiar thirst starts to rise in his throat. He makes it as far as the only bar in town before a Hoseok-esque voice in the forefront of his mind tells him to stop.

The man in question picks up after the third ring, quiet and collected in that way that always serves to both soothe and antagonise Hyungwon to no end.

 _“Hyungwon.”_ Hoseok murmurs, and there’s the quiet sound of a chair creaking. He’s still at his office.

The only thing he can say in response is a hasty “I’m at a bar.”

Silence.

Then, a deep breath, and a clucked tongue. “Are you inside or are you sitting in your car twiddling your thumbs?”

“Car.”

Another inhale. “I’m not going to tell you whether or not you should go in. It’s up to you, but you know how I feel about it. You know how you feel about it.”

“Ugh, I hate it when you’re right.”

Hoseok chuckles in that soft way of his that doesn’t sound nearly as irritated as he really is. “You called me, remember? Geez, you’d think I should be paid to know what’s best for you, except - oh, shit, I completely forgot that I am. ”

Usually Hoseok’s sarcasm is welcome, but today it just irks that little bit too much for him to handle. It doesn’t so much press against the forefront of his mind as it kicks his fucking teeth in.

“It’s not really a good time for your snark.” Not when his mother is dying and he can’t help but hate having to be there when he should be worrying about her. He is worried, but the discomfort displaces the concern - and the guilt from that alone is worse than both of the other feelings combined.

“Would you rather I pulled a Hyunwoo and treated you like you’re going to shatter if anyone so much as looks at you the wrong way? I honestly thought you’d rather I didn’t.” Hoseok breathes out yet another sigh, “I will if you want me to.”

“I’m not here because I’m relapsing, Hoseok.”

And he’s not. This place is familiar in ways nothing else will ever be, except maybe the bathroom in Hoseok’s apartment - more specifically the toilet bowl which has seen him slumped over it far too many times. These places aren’t familiar in a good way. It provides uncomfortable yet hazy recounts of things that have gone wrong, and mistakes he wishes he hadn’t made.

“Then don’t. Prove to me you won’t - prove it to yourself first.”

Trust Hoseok to make him feel like the very label he’s still trying so hard to distance himself from.

“It’s been months.” He huffs, fiddling with the ignition - trying to decide whether to turn the car off or leave it on. Is he going to face it or run away?

“And I do believe that’s an excuse. Four months doesn’t mean shit if you fall into old habits again.”

“I won’t.” Irritation pricks at Hyungwon’s fingertips, plucks at the base of his neck. “You can trust me .”

“Hyungwon-”

Hyungwon hangs up and goes inside.

The first thing that strikes him is how it hasn’t changed at all since he left. Even the old woman wiping down the tabletops is the same as ever, greying hair curling out from her temples, red apron tied securely around her round frame. She smiles as he walks in, but there’s no recognition behind it. Just politeness. Welcoming.

The same treatment that everyone else gets. Only another windblown customer who doesn’t belong here.

One thing they live by is don’t ask if you don’t want to know the answer.

Don’t ask if you don’t want to know the answer.

(But that doesn’t mean they won’t fill in the gaps on their own)

He approaches the bar, watches the old woman give him a onceover - lingering on the fit of his jacket and his jeans, lingering on everything about him his company has deemed beautiful _(sellable)_. His friends had always said he was handsome when he was younger, but he’d assumed they’d simply felt obligated to until he left for the city, and now it’s the only thing he really knows about himself.

“What can I get you?” She asks, but there’s caution in her tone; they aren’t used to strangers like him. People like him don’t come here of their own volition, they only ever leave, and you never hear from the ones who do again.

He orders a soda and ignores the way her eyes linger on him as he takes it to a lone table, one that still bears his misdirected teenage anger on it. They never asked for ID then, but he wonders if they do now. Back then, as long as you looked old enough to buy drinks you could, and if you didn’t, that wasn’t to say you couldn’t come in. As long as you don’t get caught, you can come again.

The soda doesn’t go down as easily as he’d like it to.

He calls Hoseok again to apologise and is met with the sound of traffic rushing, tinny pop music hastily turned down as Hoseok greets him.

“Hello?” He hasn’t looked at the caller ID, or maybe he’s waiting for Hyungwon to start the conversation off, instead of the other way around for once.

But for once Hyungwon is lost for words and finds himself swallowing instead.

Hoseok sighs, and it seems like that’s all he’s doing recently. “You know… I had to rearrange your schedule a lot for you to be able to go home, Hyungwon. I rearranged shoots with clients we really don’t want to disappoint, but I managed to get you out of it this once. I know you couldn’t help this. Cancer’s shit but. Please don’t give up everything you’ve worked so hard for because of it. You can’t afford another… Misstep. Your career can’t.”

“Hoseok.”

“It’s not just you that gets hurt, either.”

“I’m not going to slip up. I’m inside, and I ordered a fucking soda. I called to apologise.” Hyungwon hisses, keeping an eye out for anyone that might overhear him. “Calm down. I’m sorry I ruined your goddamn week because my mother is dying and I’m sorry that I’m recovering from a damn illness that apparently means you can’t trust me by myself. I’m sorry, alright?”

Hoseok swallows loudly, guiltily.

“Fuck. No, I’m sorry too; I’m being a dick and you don’t need this while all of this shit is going on.” Hoseok mutters, cursing as, in the distance, there’s an irritated honk. “Just do what you can, and come home when you’re done.” He hesitates, and Hyungwon can almost see him opening and closing his mouth as if he’s deciding whether to say something or not.

“I will.” Hyungwon promises, swirling the ice around the bottom of his glass. Condensation freezes his skin, dripping down over his knuckles the longer he holds it, but it’s grounding, in a way. Keeps him tethered to himself, and not what this town wanted him to be, nor what Hoseok wants him to be.

Something about this place makes him feel like someone else.

“I’ll be home before you know it, Hoseok. You’ll barely have had time to miss me.” Hoseok deserves the break after all the time he puts in taking care of Hyungwon - making sure he gets to his shoots on time, making sure he’s eating right, forcing him to go to his sessions with Hyunwoo (keeping him alive all those times he was barely hanging onto the edges of life, unconscious with his sweaty face pressed against cool tile).

“Sure, but our clients will.” Hoseok laughs, but it’s empty. “Relax, take care of yourself, otherwise you’ll break out. Eat well or Hyunwoo will kick my ass.”

(In the background there’s a very quiet gasp and a whispered _“I will_ ** _not.”_** Hyungwon blocks this from his memory, because he would prefer not to know when his manager is taking his personal trainer home with him. It’s bad enough knowing that it’s happening at all).

“I will. Don’t,” This comes with difficulty, a special kind of hard reserved for words like _sorry_ and _i love you._ “Don’t stress yourself out too much. Take this as an opportunity to have a break from me.”

This time the laugh he elicits is slightly more genuine than before, but Hyungwon wasn’t aiming to make Hoseok smile. It’s the truth, but Hoseok is stubbornly hardworking. If he isn’t taking care of Hyungwon, he’s doing something else - and it’s never ending. Perhaps Hyunwoo can work some sense into him somewhere in between going home with him and pretending he didn’t.

He hangs up and goes back to swirling half-melted ice around the bottom of his glass, watching the sky outside turn from pale grey-blue to a slightly darker shade of the same grey-blue as the day inevitably winds down. Someone pushes through the door and doesn’t hesitate before striding over to the counter. Hyungwon looks to his ice once more.

“Catch you later, Dasom.” The voice comes too loudly in the quiet room and startles Hyungwon into tipping his glass over, icy water sloshing onto the table. He curses, looking for napkins to mop up the mess and finds nothing but a torn menu and a few almost empty salt shakers.

The front door slams again as someone leaves, and the bar is cloaked in near-silence with only one customer other than Hyungwon himself and the one - now two - bartenders.

Hyungwon looks down, taps at his phone a few times before looking up takeout in the area. He only remembers one store being there but he’s not sure if it’s still in business - not long before he’d left there had been a health and safety issue. Something about the kitchen not being clean enough. Hyungwon hadn’t cared; he didn’t get sick and it tasted fine.

“Need a cloth?” Someone asks by his side and he nods without looking up. A towel plops onto the table, soaking up the water slowly before Hyungwon realises the person is still standing there, arms folded.

He looks up to ask what they want when the familiar, faded shirt stretched across the stranger’s chest catches his eye, and maybe they’re not entirely strangers after all when he realises it’s someone he once knew better than he knows himself now.

In essence, Jooheon hasn’t changed since Hyungwon left - still those same soft cheeks with dimples deeper than the Marianas Trench without even smiling, thick lips pursed, and those same sleepy but sharp eyes surveying every inch of Hyungwon’s face. He hasn’t grown all that much upwards but where he was once soft and warm, he’s firm and toned.

“If it isn’t Chae Hyungwon, showing his face around here for the first time in years.” Jooheon pouts, still eyeing Hyungwon carefully. “I should deck you in the face right now!”

Hyungwon freezes, like a deer in headlights as Jooheon raises a fist and jerks it towards his face, only stopping when he flinches.

“Geez, you’d think I’d actually hit you before.” Jooheon takes a seat across from him, before leaning forward to fold his arms over the wood of the table. “I didn’t think I was that scary.”

“You weren’t.” Hyungwon rolls his eyes, “You’re still not.”

Jooheon barks out a laugh, eyes crinkling up into crescents. He scrubs at the back of his head where the hair is shaved, it was in the past too but now the top falls around his face gently, dyed a warm reddish brown. It makes him look softer where his shaved head had made him look like a fucking scumbag.

“How’ve you been? Haven’t seen you since… Haven’t seen you in far too long.”

Hyungwon left town the night of his graduation and never returned, never even considered returning to the place that had done it’s best to smother him. The others had never been a deciding factor in whether or not he would pursue his dream, but it never mattered if they called him selfish for that.

Selfish was just another way of saying he took care of himself.

“I meant to keep in touch, you know.” It falls flat. An obvious lie. “My phone broke the day I left and… it never occurred to me to get everyone’s numbers again.”

Once upon a time there’d been a number he’d known better than his own. That one had been inputted into his new phone countless times before being deleted, messages typed out that were never sent. He’d tried, but heartbreak is unforgiving, and heartbreak leaves no room for anything but doubt.

“Well, you’re here now.” Jooheon holds his hand out, gesturing at Hyungwon pointedly, “Let’s catch up sometime - like, as a group, yeah? Changkyunnie was just saying the other day that he was thinking about you.”

For a second, Hyungwon sees himself handing his phone over to Jooheon, watching him tap away at it with a smile pressing his dimples in with the pads of its fingertips.

And then he’s hesitating - what will Jooheon see? An expensive phone Hyungwon didn’t pay for himself. Missed messages from Hoseok reminding him to eat and notifications for social media he barely uses. He’ll see into the life Hyungwon doesn’t want following him.

“Uh.” He says instead and slides a hand down his cheek nervously, “How about I give you mine instead?”

Hoseok will have his head for giving his number to random people that haven’t first been given background checks. Ever since his first manager... ever since then, Hoseok has been careful about the people who are allowed close to him. Convincing him to let Hyungwon go alone was difficult enough.

“Sure.” Jooheon doesn’t comment on the deflection, but he never was going to, because that’s just the kind of person Jooheon is. While he may have been a troublemaker in his youth (the question remains of whether he still is or not), he looks as if he’s become some kind of golden boy _(don’t ask if you don’t think you want the answer)._

Hyungwon rattles it off under his breath, in case anyone can hear that shouldn’t. Jooheon takes it obediently, lip caught between his teeth.

“What’s Minhyuk been up to?” He asks and Jooheon’s face falls. He mumbles something that sounds a lot like _‘not right now,’_ and taps his fingernails on the table.

“Uh, then how has Changkyunnie been?” He changes the subject and Jooheon’s expression completely changes to one of soft adoration.

“He’s been… He’s been good.” Jooheon mumbles, fiddling with the silver ring on his finger like it’s the only thing stopping him from saying something he shouldn’t. Subtlety still isn’t one of his strong points. “Um. We started living together last year.”

There’s ‘The News.’ Hyungwon wonders how long everyone has known (or if they do at all), wonders if anyone ever thought about letting him know, or if he hasn’t crossed any of their minds since the day he left town. Jooheon looks so happy.

“How long have you been together?” He asks and watches Jooheon blanch, as if he doesn’t realise there were clear romantic connotations behind ‘he’s been good’ and ‘we started living together last year.’ It’s so fucking obvious that it’s a wonder he never noticed anything happening before.

“Got together on graduation night.” Jooheon flushes a pretty pink, eyes dropping to the table. “Right after you… after you left. He was so gone by that point that when I turned to pass him another drink... He smiled and said ‘you’re so goddamn pretty, Jooheonie.’ After that it was like everything just fell into place.” He blushes deeper, sweetly, eyes flitting somewhere else, and Hyungwon feels a little sick.

“And what about…” He stops, mouth caught around the hard sound of a name he hasn’t said in so long that it feels foreign. Two syllables that don’t quite fit together despite knowing otherwise. He feigns boredom instead, clinks his nails against the glass in his hand.

Jooheon’s mouth opens in a tiny ‘o’, like he wasn’t expecting the question. But he had to have been given the history between them. Maybe he thought Hyungwon had forgotten (or repressed).

“Kihyun? He… He’s doing fine. At least, I think he is -” Discomfort is etched into Jooheon’s face, sunk into the fine lines around his eyes and mouth. It doesn’t feel like he’s aged much, but god, he has without a doubt. “Never fucking talks to us anyway so we don’t know how he is really. ”

They were always fucked up as friends - the worst people for each other yet unable to be separated. Not at all like Changkyun or Jooheon, who managed to be the easiest people to be around that Hyungwon had ever met until Hoseok vaulted into his life. Not at all like Minhyuk who could bring them together in even the worst of times.

“So, the same as he was in high school?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s worse. When you left, he kind of stopped _entirely_.” Each word is carefully measured, even toned and precise in it’s delivery, but there still remains a kind of newness - like he doesn’t talk about this if he can avoid it. “He wanted to leave. Even applied for a few jobs in some city, but I dunno if he got them. Either way he’s still here.”

“Why didn’t he leave?” Hyungwon leans in closer, as if the decreased gap will make Jooheon more likely to explain in depth.

Jooheon shrugs, swiping at the towel on the table, “He never said. Just didn’t. Asking never gets anywhere with him unless he wants you to know. Anyway,” He slides off the barstool and slides Hyungwon’s glass into his hands, “Can I get you a real drink? On me, of course, ‘cause I don’t think you came here for orange soda. You like the hard shit, right?”

“Uh. Well.” Hyungwon shakes his head and stands to put his coat back on, patting his pockets to make sure he leaves nothing behind. “Not anymore, Jooheon. You know one thing all that underage drinking got me?”

Jooheon watches him go in confusion, “Huh? What’s that?”

“A problem.” He replies evenly, “Tell Changkyunnie I’d like to catch up, please. It was nice to see you again.”

 

Hyungwon finds out Kihyun still lives with his parents when he knocks on their door and the man himself answers it. He only went to ask them how they’re doing, considering they were almost his second set of caregivers during high school, but somehow it never occurred to him that he’d run into anyone else.

“Ah.” He says, and the look on Kihyun’s face is nothing if not panicked.

He hasn’t grown any taller; to make eye contact he still has to tilt his head up, defiance in every strain of his neck. His cheeks are thinner, jaw sharper, eyes harder. His nose still has that point, but instead of standing out from his roundness like it once did, it accentuates his needling stare.

Hyungwon almost, _almost_ takes a step back to avoid it.

“Hello.” Kihyun sounds out cautiously, each vowel packed with discomfort. “Uh.”

“I didn’t come to see you.” He blurts and immediately feels like an ass. “I mean. Not that it’s not - not, um, good to see you. A little unexpected, yes, but not bad.”

“Sure. It’s fine - you weren’t expecting me to still be here, but it’s okay. I wouldn’t if I were you either.” Kihyun steps aside, carefully not looking Hyungwon in the face, “I know that’s not what they were expecting either.”

“They?” He steps in, discarding his shoes by the door and trying not to look at the difference between his branded socks and the holey, off-white ones on Kihyun’s feet. He walks closer and Kihyun shrinks against the wall, leaving behind a waft of cheap shampoo and cheaper deodorant.

“Who knows?” Kihyun leads Hyungwon at a safe distance, rubbing his cheek, “What brings you here?”

“Well, cancer’s a reason to bring anyone home, isn’t it?”

Kihyun’s shoulders tense, a narrow wall blocking Hyungwon from seeing the expression on his face. “Shit. Sorry. I didn’t think before I asked.”

“It’s alright-”

“No, it’s not.” Kihyun interrupts with a wave of one slender hand, dismissing Hyungwon without a second thought. “It’s really not. I knew and still put you in that position. You don’t have to excuse that.”

“You knew?”

“When there’s no other gossip, things like this travel fast, you know.” Kihyun shrugs, “When she got diagnosed she told my parents, and you know how my mother is about news that isn’t hers to tell. When did you find out?”

Hyungwon looks to the ground for the words to say and finds nothing. He doesn’t know what to say that won’t make him sound like a total asshole, if Kihyun doesn’t already think he is one. “I didn’t. Not until she’d already decided she didn’t want to survive it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

The rest of the walk through the house silent, until they’re in the kitchen. Hyungwon realises belatedly that they must be alone.

“How is it up there?” Kihyun asks quietly, as if he wasn’t the first to dismiss the idea when Hyungwon mentioned wanting to leave.

“It’s.” Hyungwon picks at the zipper of his coat. “It’s stressful, but I like it. My manager is good to me, and I’m getting contracts regularly, so. Yeah, it’s good. What have you been doing?”

Kihyun’s expression falls from one of mild discomfort to nothing but, before he smoothes it out again. Carefully. “I can’t say I’ve been out there with six inch heels and shorts that don’t quite cover my entire ass, but I’ve been doing alright, I suppose.”

 _They were seven,_ Hyungwon thinks and then, _that doesn’t answer my question._

“You have a job though?”

“Of course I have a fucking job!” For a moment they’re Kihyun and Hyungwon again, spoken in the same breath, teasing each other over everything just because they can. Then Kihyun is hunching in on himself and letting out this sad noise halfway between a sigh and a sob. And they’re just two old friends meeting up after years of being apart. “I do. I have a job.”

“But?”

“But I fucking hate it.” He mutters before sucking in a deep gasp. “I despise everything about it but I can’t leave.”

When he looks up his eyes are wet but he shoves at Hyungwon weakly before turning around and grabbing mugs out of a cupboard. And just like that it’s like he never dropped that depressing bombshell. “Now, sit. We have catching up to do, don’t we? Tell me about your big city and all your new friends.”

Something in Kihyun’s eyes looks fragile, so Hyungwon tells him all about his new life and pretends not to see it when Kihyun looks like he wants to cry.

 

The next morning Hyungwon wakes up on Kihyun’s couch, tucked away under a blanket that smells like laundry detergent and _clean_.

He hears voices in the kitchen, breaking through the pale blue of the early morning. There’s a deep murmur, and Kihyun’s soft reply. None of the words are audible, only sound.

He sits up and the couch creaks, and the voices stop.

Footsteps echo toward the door, quiet and careful, and then a man is staring in at Hyungwon with wide eyes. The shape of his jaw is the same, and so is his mouth - thin and downturned at the edges, but perhaps the most jarring part of seeing Im Changkyun again is the way his eyes have not changed in the slightest. The world has not yet worn him down like it has Kihyun.

“Kihyun told me you were here.” Changkyun smiles weakly, taking a careful step forwards. He needn’t be so afraid; he always was Hyungwon’s favourite. “And Jooheonie said you were in town, so I thought I’d come see you.”

Changkyun looks like he’s on the verge of laughing most of the time, just teetering on the edge between pained and genuine. When he’s not his face is so blank you’d think there was nothing rattling around in his skull, quite the contrary to the things in there that never used to let him sleep. Hyungwon wonders if he still stays up late. The bags under his eyes say no, but the slope of his shoulders says yes. Changkyun directs another one of his not-quite smiles at him and holds out a mug, half-filled with coffee and smears of lip balm on the rim.

“You said you’d text me.” He adds after Hyungwon has taken it and wiped it with the sleeve of his sweater. “But you never did.”

“I meant to.” And it’s not entirely a lie - just tickling the line like Changkyun’s smile, but Changkyun grimaces regardless and leans against the door as if he’s too nervous to come much closer. Once upon a time he would have fallen into Hyungwon’s side easily, like he’d been pushed.

“It’s okay. I know you were too busy. Besides, wouldn’t us country bumpkins cramp your style, city slicker?” Changkyun grins in that lazy way of his, “Too busy getting pretty girl’s numbers and snorting coke off toilet seats?”

“Something like that.” Hyungwon smiles back and is rewarded with a droll laugh.

He’s hit with the vaguely familiar urge to baby Changkyun, to rest him in the crook of his elbow like he’s made of glass. To take care of him because surely he can’t be doing that himself. He’d always needed Hyungwon to do that before.

“Geez, you’re skinny.” Changkyun says as he takes a seat finally, plucking at Hyungwon’s wrist, mouth pursed. “Don’t they feed you enough up in that city of yours?”

“That’s kinda the point. Can’t be a model if I don’t fit into their tiny clothes.”

Changkyun shoves into him, and it’s like the years haven’t split them in half at all when he rests his head on Hyungwon’s shoulder and mutters, “We’d better fatten you up real good before you go then.”

 

He goes home after that, back to his mother who is wheezing out harsh breaths in her bed, lips cracked and pale. He holds a glass of water to her mouth and watches her sip so slowly it’s a wonder she’s drinking at all.

Part of him feels tethered to her bed, a chain around his ankle stopping him from leaving.

And the rest of him wants so desperately to get out of there. Away from her, away from everything here.

He listens to the former for once - the voice in his head that sounds like a mixture of himself in prepubescence and another higher lilt belonging to a boy with soft round cheeks and a pointy nose.

 

He’s sitting in the bar with Minhyuk, just as he remembers him: silky dark hair flopping over his face and a cheeky grin. He gestures at Hyungwon, eyebrows raised as he mouths,

_‘You should do it. Get it over with before you go.’_

“I can’t.”

Minhyuk puts his hand over Hyungwon’s. _‘Yes, you can. You’ve done it before, so you can do it again.’_

“I _can’t_.”

 _‘You’ve already done it.’_ Minhyuk is watching over Hyungwon’s shoulder, a sad smile taking the place of the one before. _‘So don’t worry.’_

Hyungwon turns around to find Kihyun staring at him, mouth hanging ajar. He shakes his head, eyes wet.

“You weren’t supposed to -” He cuts himself off, gagging on the tears spilling down his cheeks in great torrents. Water rises around Hyungwon’s feet, filling the room until his face is barely above the surface.

Something grabs his ankles and tugs him underwater, ignoring his flailing arms and legs. The last thing he sees before his vision darkens is Minhyuk holding onto him, teeth bared. _‘Don’t go. Please, don’t go. Don’t leave me.’_

Even underwater he can still hear Kihyun sobbing.

 

Halfway through the week he decides to go out again. He doesn’t feel like meeting up with Jooheon or Changkyun again, and he knows they’re both busy - Changkyun doing sound at the town radio station in hopes he’ll be able to climb up the ranks, and Jooheon serving drinks to the same town alcoholics over and over again. That could have been him once.

Instead he goes to a cafe, one that’s opened in his absence. It’s quiet, barely enough people inside to garner hope that it won’t be awful, but it’s the only place that isn’t an outdated fast food restaurant so he settles into a seat by the counter and waits for a server to come out.

It seems to take hours (though in reality it’s more like twenty minutes), by which time Hyungwon has considered simply going and getting a burger, extra fries, extra everything. Whatever Hyunwoo doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

But then a tiny body shuffles out, lips pulled back in a forced grin before sliding to stand in front of Hyungwon. The server’s small hands are clenched in his apron, trembling a little with the force of the hold.

“Oh, hey, Kihyun.” Hyungwon looks him over, watches the way his shoulders jerk in on themselves. “You work here?”

“Yes.” Kihyun grits like it physically pains him, “Can I get you anything?”

“When do you finish? We didn’t really get to talk the other night.” He smiles, and Kihyun’s gaze drops to the counter instead of Hyungwon.

“I.” He turns to the percolator and starts fiddling with it aimlessly, “I meant. Uh. Can I _get you_ anything? From the menu?” He repeats and Hyungwon sighs in response.

“A coffee and one of those little pastry things.” He points and Kihyun finally looks up enough to catch sight of what he wants, but he looks uncomfortable until he’s given Hyungwon his order and bustled into the back room once more.

Outside, a car thumping with bass passes, and Hyungwon has the urge to go throw himself in front of it, just to escape the disrupted ambience that is becoming more and more obvious with the silence. He eats as quietly as possible, avoiding scraping his fork on his plate, or sipping too loudly.

All those years ago it seemed like Kihyun had always been running steps ahead of Hyungwon. Too far ahead to ever catch up to, always looking back over his shoulder with that edge in his smile that said _‘just try and follow me, fucker.’_

And now as he sits in the cafe with unread texts from his manager in his phone burning a hole through his pocket, and Kihyun hiding in the back room for fear he’ll actually have to talk to Hyungwon, he feels like somewhere along the track he hadn’t noticed Kihyun stumble.

Over what, Hyungwon doesn’t know. Maybe he tripped Kihyun without realising. Maybe he ran out of breath.

Maybe something held him back.

“Kihyun! Get out there and do your damn job. I’m not paying you to just sit there.” A shout reverberates loudly enough that Hyungwon swears the ornaments on the wall shudder, and there’s a muffled curse before Kihyun steps back behind the counter, face blaring crimson. Hyungwon notices then that he seems to favour his right leg more than the other.

“Hey.” Hyungwon waves and is ignored, “Kihyun.”

“What?” Kihyun hisses, glaring with an intensity Hyungwon had forgotten he was capable of. It’s enough to make him shrink back in his seat, biting his lip.

He finally works up the nerve once Kihyun has looked away again, hands clenched so tightly in his lap that his knuckles are white. “Where’s Minhyuk?”

Kihyun starts, wide eyes meeting Hyungwon in a moment of pure unbridled panic. Hyungwon has never seen Kihyun look this scared before, like every blood vessel in his body is frozen in place. That alone is concerning enough, but when Kihyun’s face crumples like he’s trying not to cry, Hyungwon knows something is wrong.

“We had an argument on graduation night.” Is all he says before he sweeps up Hyungwon’s empty plate and disappears again, not before muttering, “I finish at eight.”

 

He comes back at half seven and sits in his car to wait for Kihyun. He asks Hoseok if he’s free, and when he receives a reply of ‘busy right now’ he turns to Hyunwoo, an unlikely outcome of any occasion but the urge to rant at someone overtakes any awkwardness he may feel in talking to the person who knows the bare minimum about him; Hyungwon’s schedule and his body are his only concerns for the most part.

Hyunwoo picks up on the first ring and it occurs to Hyungwon then that he doesn’t know how to really start a proper conversation between them, but there’s already the soft static silence filling his right ear by then and he has no choice but to say something lest Hyunwoo hang up.

“Uh. Hey.” He says and curses inwardly when his voice comes out sounding like it’s been put through a blender.

“Hyungwon? Is something wrong?” Hyunwoo clucks his tongue, “Have you been eating properly?”

“Yes. I had a chicken salad for lunch, don’t worry.” A lie perhaps but it wasn’t a burger, and Hyunwoo would hate that more than a flimsy pastry. “I didn’t call about - Anyway. Something is wrong.”

“Do you want a dietary plan then? Is that it?”

“No, it’s…” He swallows, throat thick, “Um. I don’t belong here.”

Hyunwoo goes silent. He doesn’t speak for so long that Hyungwon thinks he’s hung up, or passed out at the concept of real human interaction beyond making someone lift weights, but finally there’s a quiet reply, and it’s so carefully thought out that it makes Hyungwon’s heart ache with the sudden wave of affection.

“You don’t belong there because… They aren’t used to you as you are now?”

“Yeah.” He mumbles, letting his forehead drop onto his steering wheel, “They think I’m still that scrawny little kid stealing cigarettes from his mother’s handbag.”

“You’re still scrawny, but you don’t smoke anymore, and you certainly don’t steal.” Whenever Hyunwoo gives advice there’s this strange tone in his voice that speaks of uncertainty and discomfort, like he’s not sure how to do it properly.

“But that’s not the point. It’s not about me stealing cigarettes, Hyunwoo, it’s about their expectations that don’t match up to the real me.” Hyungwon sighs, pushing his glasses up to rub at the tender skin of his eyebags, “They don’t know who I am anymore. They look at me like I’m gonna - like I’m gonna… Leave them again.”

“You are going to leave them again. You’ve only got a week left.” Hyunwoo goes silent again, but instead of the quiet being carefully measured and thought filled, it’s thick with tension. In the end he says, bluntly as he is prone to, “But they will know you. If you let them. Um, I have to go now. Keep to your diet and don’t hurt yourself, please.”

“I will and I won’t. Tell Hoseok I said hi.”

He hangs up on Hyunwoo’s spluttering and goes back to sulking in the warmth of his car instead of going in to check if Kihyun is done like he should be.

A knock on his window startles him awake, and when he looks up he comes face to face with an impatient Kihyun. He unlocks the doors and Kihyun slides into the passenger seat with a weary sigh, rubbing his hand over his face.

“I didn’t think this meant you’d drive me home, Hyungwon.” He still buckles himself in regardless, carefully tucking himself into his seat in a careful kind of way that only he manages to make look natural. It’s also the same way he sees Hoseok fold himself in behind the wheel when he takes Hyungwon to his shoots. Like the last thing he wants is to be the reason someone is hurt. “I assumed you’d walked.”

The urge to ask presses itself against the back of his teeth like some kind of parasitic creature.

Instead he asks Kihyun how his day was and listens as Kihyun describes the dishwasher breaking as if it’s the most interesting thing that’s happened all week and tries not to feel sorry for him.

 

_Who did Kihyun hurt?_

 

The bell rings and Hyungwon’s head shoots up, just in time for a palm to come down on the back of his neck in a sharp slap.

“Ow!”

“You shouldn’t have been sleeping in class.” Kihyun nudges him upright, sliding over a small sheaf of notes he must have written in Hyungwon’s stead. “When even the teacher doesn’t care anymore, you should be concerned.”

Together they stand and make their way out of class, Hyungwon clinging to Kihyun’s arm for balance as he starts to regain full consciousness again. His vision is still fuzzy but he trusts Kihyun to lead him. He’s never failed him before.

“Or, I could take advantage of it.” He yawns and leans against the lockers while Kihyun fishes through their shared one, ignoring the dirty look another boy from their year, gives him, pointedly looking at the locker he’s leaning on.

Kihyun laughs like he’s trying not to and slams it shut, apologising to Doyoung before beginning to tug Hyungwon down the hall. He doesn’t let go, and Hyungwon’s arm is tingling. Somewhere along the line, Minhyuk bursts out of his usual hiding place behind a bannister and shoves his way between them, but Kihyun’s touch lingers in the same way that expensive perfume lingers on clothing.

Loving Kihyun is so easy that sometimes he forgets they’re just friends. It’s so damn easy to forget that Kihyun has no idea Hyungwon feels the way he does. And he never will.

 

“What did you and Minhyuk fight about?” Hyungwon, pulling into Kihyun’s driveway, finally manages to ask. He doesn’t turn the car off, but sits in the warm hum to avoid silence. Kihyun unbuckles his seatbelt but makes no move to get out.

“You.” He replies after a pregnant pause, lips curved downwards, “After you left, he wanted me to call you right away and try to make things right again, but I couldn’t.” He takes one deep shuddering breath, “I couldn’t bring myself to.”

Hyungwon turns away so he doesn’t have to see Kihyun: there’s an awful sickly feeling in his stomach he isn’t quite ready to confront.

“I was driving him home from the bar. Jooheon and Changkyun were… They’d left already, you were on a plane away from us forever, but Minhyuk needed a ride, and I volunteered.” He’s drawing it out, and Hyungwon wants to know. “He was upset, I was upset, he wanted me to tell you what I should’ve said even though you were gone and - I got angry. We fought.”

Kihyun’s voice breaks, but he keeps going like he needs to say it. “I didn’t see the truck, I was too mad. My car might as well have been made of paper, Hyungwonnie. It crumpled like - like it was nothing. We were so _insignificant_.”

“And Minhyuk?” Hyungwon is balanced on the edge of a precipice, so close to falling and Kihyun’s the one holding onto the back of his shirt, he’s the one that could let him go at any second.

Kihyun’s voice sounds like it’s been put through a shredder when he runs his hand down his face, “Minhyuk’s gone, Hyungwon.”

The heater is on in the car, but Hyungwon may as well be inside a freezer with how fast the temperature drops. Kihyun doesn’t suddenly start laughing, or poke his finger in Hyungwon’s face ‘Haha, I got you!’, instead he lets out a broken sob and curls in on himself.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I killed him.”

The words are spoken through deep water, and Hyungwon is falling. He hasn’t hit the ground yet, but when he does it’s going to hurt.

At some point he realises he’s been repeating the same question over and over, “Why did no one tell me? Why did no one tell me? Kihyun, why did no one tell me?”

“I don’t know.” Kihyun grits, scrubbing at his eyes, “I never thought to. You were gone and you didn’t want to talk to me, so I never thought about it.”

“It doesn’t matter what I said that night! Minhyuk- Our friend died and nobody thought that maybe I’d like to fucking know about that? At his funeral, did none of you think that maybe I’d like to be there? And even then no effort was made to let me know?” Hyungwon slams his hand against his steering wheel and Kihyun jumps, face an ugly blotchy red. “Get out. I can’t - Get out, Kihyun.”

“Hyungwon, I’m sorry.” Kihyun reaches for Hyungwon, but falls short, “Believe me, I would have told you.”

“But you didn’t. So please just get out.” He hisses, and instead of retaliation as there once would have been, there’s silence. Kihyun withdraws in on himself as much as he can, and opens his door.

“I’d like to see you before you leave. Please don’t hold this against me.”

Hyungwon keeps his mouth shut, and waits for the door to slam shut again before he looks up. He waits until he sees the light illuminating the front porch click off before he leaves.

 

He goes straight to Jooheon and Changkyun’s shared house and bangs on the door until Jooheon opens it, in his pajama pants and pillow marks creased into his soft cheeks, hair sticking up at the back and swollen eyes. He doesn’t wait for a greeting before he’s shoving himself into the darkness, where Changkyun is sprawled across the couch with a pillow on his shoulder and a folded back blanket over his lap. The television casts a light across his face in the otherwise darkened room, illuminating his wide shiny eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He demands and alertness jolts into both of their faces. There’s no way they don’t know what he’s talking about, not when Jooheon takes a careful step back, arms held in front of him as if Hyungwon has a gun to his chest. “There was some way you could have, surely.”

They share a glance, one that sparks jealousy in his gut. And then Jooheon takes a step closer again, placating.

“Hey-”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He shouts, startling even himself, “The least you could have done was fire me off a goddamn email or something! Anything would have been better than finding out five years too late!” His eyes burn. He grits his teeth in hopes he can stop crying before he starts.

None of the grace Hoseok tells him he possesses is here, just raw anger that leaves him clumsy. Jooheon is looking at him like he’s caught between telling him he’s gone insane, and apologising.

Sorry isn’t what he needs right now. He needs someone to explain what kind of wires got crossed that meant he wasn’t involved.

“Didn’t you think I deserved to know?” A sluggish tear finds it’s way down his cheek, trickling down under his jaw. The feeling is so foreign that for a second he thinks a bug has crawled onto his face and goes to shift it, only to find his finger wet. It’s more vulnerability than he’d like to show, and more than he’s used to.

You’re not supposed to cry as a model. Makeup will run and your eyes will puff, and it’s really not pretty unless that’s the concept the shoot has. Hyungwon has since discovered different ways of keeping emotions in check, but for once he’s forgotten every single trick he has in his repertoire.

The floodgates open, and before he knows it he’s cradled into soft warm fabric, hands clutched in front of his face to hide it. He can’t see anything but pink between his fingers, something woolen that smells like floral laundry detergent and that hot scent that clings to fabric after it’s been taken out of the dryer.

“It’s okay, Wonnie.” Changkyun murmurs in his low voice, and the deep sound of it rumbles underneath Hyungwon’s head. His limbs are too lanky to be a comfortable fit in Changkyun’s lap, but he’s held tightly regardless of poking elbows and knees. “The paramedics said… they said he wouldn’t have felt anything. He wouldn’t have even known they’d been hit.”

A blanket is tucked around his shoulders, fuzz tickling his nose, but everything reduces to muffled noise and warm. Safe. Another arm joins the two around his waist, and Jooheon leans in, “I’m sorry you didn’t find out until now.”

“Better now than never, I guess.” He replies, nasally and wet, and Jooheon chuckles, but it sounds flat.

He sits in a house he doesn’t belong in, with people who aren’t sure who he is anymore. He thinks about Minhyuk - who he didn’t get a chance to see again. They don’t know how to hold each other like they used to: Changkyun has his arms around Hyungwon tighter than he’d like, and Jooheon’s too warm for comfort, but it’s the most physical comfort Hyungwon has had apart from hands on his hips and lips on his neck in so long that he can’t quite bring himself to rearrange.

For awhile, Hyungwon used to feel as if Changkyun’s voice was made to fill in all the gaps around his body, seep into the dips of his spine, soak into his ears and mouth and fill him up to the brim with calm, but now it feels a few sizes too big. It doesn’t fit the way it used to, but it’s okay.

For awhile, Jooheon’s voice felt like it was pushing against the very inside of Hyungwon’s chest: a kind of comfortable drill sergeant that inspired motivation when all else failed. But now when Jooheon whispers ‘Come on, I’ll lend you some clothes. You can stay here tonight,’ all he can think is that he doesn’t want to get up yet. He wants to hit snooze on Jooheon’s voice. He wants to stay in their bubble of quiet until he’s recovered.

He falls asleep like that: underwater with only arms clothed in domesticity to keep his head above the surface.

 

“You shouldn’t have lied to him.” Changkyun says as they’re getting ready for bed, side by side in their dim bathroom. Their toothbrushes sit in the same cracked mug, the pink and yellow floral one Jooheon smacked against the counter when he was trying to put it away. It was too pretty to throw away, so they found another use for it.

Jooheon, visible in the oval mirror above the sink is in the midst of smoothing moisturiser over his cheeks. He rolls his eyes. “It wouldn’t have done him any good. He wasn’t there and the outcome was the same. He’s… he’s an alcoholic, sweetheart, I don’t want to push him into doing anything he’d regret. I know he came here to see her, but if I told him he’d resent her even more.”

Behind them, the shower head lets out a few drip-drops, as if it was an afterthought from their earlier shower. The sound of them hitting the tile below echoes loudly enough that Changkyun sticks his head out the door to make sure Hyungwon is still passed out on the faded couch.

“I know he deserved to know,” Hushed, he clenches his hands into fists by his side, “Minhyuk would have wanted him to. He came back to find out he’d been lied to all this time and to still lie… it’s not fair, Jooheon. It’s not fair on him and it’s not fair on Minhyuk.”

“She didn’t tell him because she knew he was just getting settled up there. If he knew you know he would have come back. Could’ve fucked up everything he had going for him.”

Changkyun knows it’s true, but it doesn’t stop the inkling of hurt that comes with knowing Hyungwon’s wounds are fresh in comparison to their old scars, barely even pink anymore. Hyungwon has only just started to bleed. He’s been given a chance to grieve, but it’s in solitude.

“Do you really think he would have given up on his career just to… just to see Minhyuk die?”

The sigh Jooheon lets out sounds indecisive, and then he’s pressing his forehead against Changkyun’s shoulder, holding him close. “He might have back then, but I don’t know whether the kind of person he is now would have.”

In the circle of Jooheon’s arms, Changkyun turns around to wrap his hands around Jooheon’s neck, leaning their foreheads together with a resigned smile, “We don’t know him well enough to say.”

They don’t. But they would like to.

 

Hyungwon wakes to sunlight streaming through wide windows, striking him across the cheek with big warm palms. There’s faint clattering from another room in the house, what sounds like cutlery scraping on porcelain. Low murmurs reach his ears as he sits up, a thick blanket falling off his shoulders.

He stands unsteadily, noting the lack of shoes on his feet and his jacket that has been hung up on the coat rack by the door. He doesn’t remember taking either of these things off. He inhales, and something sweet and pan-fried drifts into his lungs. He notices his throat is raw, and his eyes still sting.

The voices slow when his feet pass the doorway, prompting a creak from an unsettled floorboard, hidden somewhere.

“Come get pancakes.” Jooheon calls, sounding more like a doting mother than his own could ever. “They’re still hot.”

He makes his way through a cramped mustard yellow bathroom with green tiles on the floor, a tiny sink with an oval mirror over it that reflects his messy hair, a study scattered with books and loose sheets of paper covered in tidy writing, a teal bedroom with a poorly made bed and not much else in plain sight, and finally into a kitchen that’s decorated in baby pink and frills of lace. He can almost forget last night when the two smile at him after he’s found his way through the patchwork of rooms that shouldn’t fit together.

“Morning.” Changkyun passes him a fresh cup of coffee, milky and weak. It’s not the way he likes it, but he takes it anyway. “Sleep well?”

“Of all the couches I’ve slept on since I got here, this was the best.” Perhaps it was simply exhaustion, but he doesn’t remember dreaming: he just remembers waking up.

“Good,” Jooheon takes a bite of his own pancake, looking up at Changkyun dotingly, “You looked like you needed it.”

They’re sickly sweet together. The kind of sickly he wanted for himself and Kihyun once upon a time, until he was reminded of how unlikely that would be. It’s all in the way they look at each other with such soft eyes, like they love each other with everything they have. It’s adorable in the worst kind of way, and Hyungwon wants to avert his eyes.

Briefly, he thinks, they’d be wonderful parents.

“I should. Um, Get going. I don’t want to bother you anymore than I already have.” Hyungwon finishes half his coffee in small increments, sip sip sipping away at it just for something to do with his mouth while he’s scrutinised for what feels like an eternity.

“Don’t.” Jooheon reaches for Hyungwon’s arm, and he’s finally found familiarity in the way Jooheon’s mouth purses in a pout, eyebrows curving inwards, “We still haven’t really caught up. You don’t have to go yet.”

“You sure? You don’t have work or something?”

“Even if I didn’t start late, I’m sure an old friend is reason enough to call in sick.” In between bites of his pancakes, Jooheon manages to reach over and put his hand over Hyungwon’s - a small reassurance. “Changkyunnie already has. So it’d be kinda rude if you left now.” He raises his eyebrows expectantly, “Unless you already have other plans?”

“No,” His mother’s house is cold and empty, and there’s nothing else for him. There’s nothing left for him in most places here. But the problem is that there isn’t a lot for him in his city either apart from money. Nowhere is home, and all he feels is emptiness. “I don’t. I’m not busy.”

“Then you’re good!” Changkyun does this thing where he sort of flops over in his seat, drapes himself over Hyungwon’s side and rests his head on his shoulder, “We still haven’t talked about anything. Smalltalk is shit, dude, never thought I’d be having to make polite conversation with you, of all people.”

“I never thought you all would lie to me about something as important as the death of a close friend, but everyone’s full of surprises, aren’t they?” Hyungwon replies, an edge of irritation serrating his own mouth even as the words leave it. _Why did I say that?_ Changkyun stills.

“I thought we’d addressed this.” Jooheon grunts, looking down at the table, “We were going to tell you, alright? But.”

“But, what?”

Changkyun suddenly seems very interested in plucking at the fabric of Hyungwon’s sleeve. He doesn’t say a thing, and neither does Jooheon.

“But, _what?”_ He repeats, harder, in the tone he uses when Hoseok doesn’t want to tell him things that he really should. “What is it?”

“But your mother said she would.” Jooheon murmurs, fiddling with his cutlery, “At the hospital, when we were all standing around his bed, she told us she’d call you.”

“Well, she didn’t,” And then, “Why would he be in a hospital bed if he died on impact?”

Jooheon jerks, Changkyun stiffens. There’s a still, long silence, and life is rushing back into Hyungwon’s ears when they both hasten to rectify Jooheon’s mistake.

“Kihyun - Kihyun’s bed. When he was in hospital after the accident.” Jooheon grits.

“He got hurt. L- Leg, broken. Yeah.” Changkyun stutters, butting his head against Hyungwon’s shoulder, “Oops. Hyungwon, tell us about your job?”

“Changkyun, what happened to Minhyuk?”

“Tell us about your job.” Changkyun nearly begs, tone pleading, “We haven’t heard about it at all.”

“Tell me what happened to Minhyuk first. What do you have to hide?” Appetite curdled, Hyungwon shoves his plate away, puts his coffee down for fear he’ll smash the cup, “There’s something you aren’t telling me, I know it. All anyone’s done since I got back is lie and - and not tell me shit I deserve to know. It’s not fair!”

Changkyun pulls away with this strange incredulous look on his face, and then he’s shaking his head slowly. “Shit you _deserve_ to know? It’s been five years since you left. Four since Minhyuk died. You deserve to know _what_ exactly? You deserve to know that Minhyuk was fucking brain dead for eleven months after the crash until his parents decided to pull the damn plug just so he wouldn’t have to suffer anymore? We didn’t tell you because we didn’t want you to come back to _fester_ with us. Don’t you dare blame all this on us, you childish asshole. We had your best interests at heart! I only _ever-_ I always had your best interests at heart.”

He stops for a moment, breath wheezing out of his lungs weakly. Tears are gathering in the corners of his eyes but he still stabs his finger at Hyungwon fiercely, teeth gritted. “I tried calling for months and you didn’t pick up _once_. I tried sending emails but they all bounced back. I tried getting in contact any way I could and nothing worked. I’m sorry we let you continue your life happily, but you weren’t here. So just. Shut up and finish your breakfast.”

It’s like Hyungwon isn’t quite in his head as he picks up his fork again, not actively controlling his limbs. Words fill his mouth only to recede again, drip down the back of his throat into his stomach. He realises suddenly the extent to which he doesn’t know them. Changkyun the most.

Once upon a time Changkyun was a shy boy prone to bouts of sickness and sulking. He was grumpy when he wasn’t poking fun at someone with a grin, and if he wasn’t either of those things then he was staring blankly at nothing. Now he’s so full of life that it’s almost blinding. He passes Jooheon the sugar with a tight-lipped smile reminiscent of the one his mother wore.

He’s unreachable in his impossible maturity that Hyungwon never had to develop fully.

“So,” Jooheon starts, licking over his teeth a few times before he continues, as if to remove lingering syrup (or discomfort), “Tell us about your job.”

At first he doesn’t want to say anything, not when they’ve just had the argument they just did. But then Changkyun is shooting him a glare that says _hurry up already._

“...Well, I do spreads and runways. Mostly runways.” Hyungwon mumbles into his mug, steam breathing up to blind him. “Um, I have a manager, Hoseok, and a personal trainer Hyunwoo. They’re fucking but think I don’t know about it. And… Hoseok… he’s… He’s good to me. He’s the best manager I could have, honestly.”

God forbid Hoseok ever hear those words coming from Hyungwon’s mouth, of course. He’d rather die than actually admit something like that, even if they’re both aware of it.

“He’s the one that took care of me after my first manager, uh. Yeah. After my first manager.” His first was a disaster waiting to happen, only he’d never seen it until it was too late, and then it had all suddenly made sense.

“What happened?” Jooheon asks, chewing on his fork, “What happened with the first one?”

“He was spreading rumours about me. Nasty rumours that was stopping me from getting jobs, and I didn’t even realise until the dumb asshole left _my_ computer open with emails he was sending to news agencies. And, of course, I naively thought that confronting him would be enough to stop it, but when I did he… Attacked me.” The words come pouring out, metallic tasting, burning his throat, but he can’t stop. There’s a cold silence when he pauses, and it feels as if the pink of the room has washed out to a dull white. “He smashed my head into a wall, and would have probably killed me if Hoseok hadn’t walked in.”

Jooheon swallows and looks down, face pale. “And after that?”

“Hoseok pulled him off me. Knocked him out, called the police, and sat with me until they showed up. I asked him to be my manager after that because I know I can trust him. He helped me get out of that rut when I started drinking. He was the one to throw out all the bottles and talk me into rehab.”

Changkyun’s hands find their way into Hyungwon’s hair, winding through the strands. He leans in and presses his forehead against Hyungwon’s neck, pulls him so close their chests brush every time one of them breathes.

“It’s funny,” His throat is thick, trapped words clogging until he can barely figure out how to get them out let alone fully registering what it exactly he’s revealing, “I didn’t even know Hoseok before I hired him. He’d been my manager’s assistant, but I never saw him. I didn’t even know him but trusting him has been the best decision I’ve ever made. I think he’s so cautious now because he worked for the guy and never suspected anything either.”

“But you’re safe now, right?” Jooheon never questioned the close nature of his and Changkyun’s relationship before, and he certainly doesn’t now. Hyungwon forgot how much better this kind of physical contact makes him feel.

“Yeah, I’m fine now. I’ve got a restraining order against him and everything’s fine. I’ve been cold turkey since last August.” And it is the truth, partially. His past manager is no longer the problem, and his current has never been a problem at all. Now there’s nothing to blame anything going wrong on - it’s his own fault, but taking responsibility for his own actions has never been something he’s any good at.

He’d always been a lot more accustomed to blame, and the worst part of that is he’s aware. He knows he shouldn’t, and yet.

“Let’s stop this depressing talk, yeah?” Changkyun presses his nose into Hyungwon’s temple, “We should just. Chill out for awhile. When are you going home?”

“End of the week.” He replies, lips barely moving, “I wanted to stay with Mum as long as possible, but, I don’t know. I didn’t think about what it would actually be like. I sort of remembered how much I don’t like being around her as soon as I walked into the house.”

Changkyun pulls away, disappointment all over his face. “I know I said no more depressing talk, but she’s literally on her fucking deathbed and you’re avoiding her. God, to think I’d forgotten how self-centred you can be.”

“I can’t be around her, you know that! You know she nothing short of kicked me out as soon as she could. She didn’t tell me about Minhyuk. She didn’t call me once!” Hyungwon chews on a fingernail, “Going in there reminds me of everything my childhood was that I hated.”

“You’ll regret it if you don’t. You don’t have to forgive her, but she’s all alone. She’ll die alone!” Changkyun has tears in his eyes again as he grabs Hyungwon’s elbow, “She has no one.”

“Don’t you think she deserves it?” Their relationship had always been strained, as long as he could remember. There was always the fear of being forgotten that she’d unintentionally instilled in him, through years of being ignored. Through years of taking care of himself because he had no one else to. Through years of clinging to anyone who showed him the slightest attention. “Isn’t it just karma?”

Jooheon shakes his head. “You don’t mean that.”

He doesn’t. Despite it all part of him still aches to know what it feels like to have her look at him, _really_ look at _him_ and say she’s proud.

“I can’t be in there with her longer than an hour. I’ve tried, but I just-”

“This may very well be the last time you ever see her.” Changkyun says into his mug, giving Jooheon a glance over top of Hyungwon’s head, “You don’t want to regret anything when it comes to someone you love dying.”

“I’ll be better off when she kicks the damn bucket.” Hyungwon snarls, fighting the urge to storm out.

Jooheon’s fork falls to his plate with a clatter and then he’s leaning up over the counter to put his face right up close to his. “You don’t mean that.” He repeats, teeth bared. “Look - it sucks. You hate being here. We get that. But just because you’re mad at her doesn’t mean you should be mad at us too.”

“I’m sorry.” He says to his lap, anger slipping from between his fingertips the harder he tries to hold on, “I know it’s awful of me. I know I’m supposed to - I’m supposed to be a good son. If I’d just done everything she wanted me to, then,”

_(I wouldn’t be happy. I’d be here talking about broken dishwashers after work instead of doing what I'm made for)_

“Then things might have turned out differently. She still would have smoked too much, she’d still be dying. Maybe Minhyuk wouldn’t have - but I didn’t. I left, and I’m doing something I love, and that’s just how it is. I can’t take back decisions I made when I was eighteen.”

“But it’s not about you!” Changkyun hisses, “How often is the topic of conversation _your_ life and _your_ decisions, Hyungwon? So that’s what they’re teaching you up there, then: to be a typical narcissistic model. Your mother is going to die any day now, and all you’re worried about is how that’s going to affect _you._ ”

His head drops down, looking into his lap, “We aren’t going to lie and say that you coming back wasn’t a long time coming, and we won’t say we aren’t happy to see you. But we aren’t why you need to be here. Kihyun isn’t. Minhyuk isn’t. _She_ is; You don’t have to act like her son for much longer, but for god’s sake if you can’t be genuine, at least pretend.”

Hyungwon helps Jooheon with the dishes when he’s done with his food, and then he drives to his mother’s house and stands in the shower until the hot water turns his skin pink and wrinkly. He feels like a newborn baby as he smoothes lotion over his shoulders, over everything he can reach.

For a moment he pities her, lying there in bed with no other family to take care of her. He pities her for being so sick, he pities her for being so goddamn weak. The cancer has drained everything from her he ever knew, sucked the life right from her bones.

She lifts her head when he enters the room, eyes dull, and watches him sit on the side of her bed with a bowl of watery soup he’d found in a tin in the cupboard. When she opens her mouth to speak, her throat rattles.

“Have you visited everyone?” She asks, lips parched. She doesn’t so much as look at the bowl in his hands. The voice that speaks to him isn’t hers - it’s raw and faded, torn to shreds.

“Yeah.” He nods, “It felt a bit like old times. How are you feeling?”

“Hungry.” She smiles, but everything about her seems like old parchment. Hyungwon is worried that if she takes so much as a sip it will soak through.

“This is for you.”

She sits up, slowly, tucking her blankets around her. He’s used to her dark hair being pinned tightly to her head but it’s completely hidden by a scarf. He wonders how much, if any, is left, clinging desperately to her skull. Changkyun said that by the time she found out she decided there wasn’t any point getting therapy.

As she reaches for the bowl, a cough forces itself out of her chest. She folds over, eyes clenched shut as she just heaves into her hands. It’s awful and hacking, like every single cough is ripping her lungs right out of her chest.

When she finally stops, she reaches over for a tissue, and Hyungwon doesn’t miss that her hands leave it streaked with red.

She drinks the soup quietly, carefully, putting it down when she’s only halfway through.

“Thank you.” She murmurs, reaching for his hand. “You know that I love you, right?”

He gives it to her despite the barely-repressed shudder running through his body at the thought of those blood-contaminated palm coming into contact with his own. “Yes, I do.”

“And you love me too?” Her bitten nails scrabble against his knuckles almost desperately.

“Yes.” He nods shortly, lips pursing briefly, “I love you too.”

She smiles as if he’s told her the only thing she’s ever wanted to hear for weeks, and closes her eyes. “I’m proud of you, son. I know I wasn’t always supportive of what you wanted to do but I was just worried. I didn’t want anyone to make fun of you.”

_Bullshit._

_What did you know about people making fun of me? It’s not like you noticed, did you?_ He ducks down briefly, rests his forehead on her shoulder, “I didn’t care that they called me pretty boy to my face, I didn’t even care when they called me worse behind my back. It only ever hurt when you and Ki told me that I shouldn’t even try, Mom. That’s what hurt.”

Her eyes glisten, “Hyungwonnie, I-”

“It hurt that you didn’t think to tell me Minhyuk died.” There’s a thousand questions caught between his teeth, but he can’t ask them. It’s not fair on her. “But, it’s okay. I forgive you.”

Would it be so easy to forgive if there wasn’t such a weight on his shoulders?

“I forgive you for everything and I’ll - I’ll stay with you as long as I can.”

She smiles and closes her eyes, “I’m tired... Always so tired these days. You’ll be here when I wake up?”

“I will.”

As she drifts off he’s struck with the realisation that she’s lonely. He tries to feel like it’s her fault, but he just feels guilty instead.

 

He receives a call from an unknown number while he’s doing his skincare later that night. He almost doesn’t answer, Hoseok’s voice echoing in the back of his head, but then curiosity overtakes all possible caution, and he presses his thumb down to answer it instead.

“Hello?”

“Hello?” The voice is so familiar that he nearly lets out a sigh of relief. “Sorry, I got your number from Jooheon, I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine - It’s you so it’s okay.” And it is. “So did you finally replace that shitty phone you had in high school?”

Kihyun snorts, “Yeah, I did last year.” And then, “Wait, how did you know?”

Without even thinking, Hyungwon replies, “Didn’t recognise the number - Shit. Forget I said that.” He wants to crawl into a hole in the ground, or call Hoseok up and ask him to drive all the way here to take him home right now. It’s only made all the more humiliating when Kihyun makes this tiny smug noise at the back of his throat.

“I thought you would have forgotten.” The smile in his voice is audible, as if it were possible to physically take the edges of a sentence and curl them up with your bare hands. As if someone had lit a match underneath a sheet of paper just to watch it warm and fold in on itself. “But you didn’t.”

“I have a nasty habit of remembering things I shouldn’t.” Like phone numbers and the way Kihyun’s mouth used to curve upwards whenever Hyungwon said something he found amusing, or how a badly timed confession gone awry felt the second his heart broke. “Sometimes I just wish I’d remember the things I’m supposed to.”

“Like my birthday.” Kihyun mumbles, “You’d think you’d remember that if you really were in love with me.”

Time stops for a moment as they both process the words, and then sound is rushing back as Kihyun apologises, tongue stuttering over clumsy words that neither of them are sure he means. He’s sorry for bringing it up now, sure, but is he sorry for anything else? Is he really sorry?

“Don’t worry about it.” He finds himself saying, despite the fact that it stung a part of him that had been left alone for so long it’s protective shell had disintegrated. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

“But you did.” Kihyun says, brittle. “You told me something like that and didn’t think I’d- I’d yell at you. You trusted me.”

“It’s in the past.” On the night it had hurt so much that he’d spent the whole car trip clutching his steering wheel, staring out into the vast unknown wordlessly. He hadn’t spoken more than strictly necessary to anyone, not even his new roommate as he threw himself into unpacking. Eventually the ache had faded to nothing, and it was only coming back that made him wonder whether he was fully recovered or not - forgetting is a hell of a lot easier than confronting yourself. “I’m over it, idiot.”

“But-”

“I said I’m over it.” He pushes his sheets down and crawls into them, waiting for warmth to seep into them enough for it to be tolerable. “Your birthday? That’s supposed to be soon, isn’t it?”

“Last week.” Kihyun smiles, “A few days before you showed up. I haven’t done anything for it yet so…”

Silence. Cloying, uncomfortable silence.

“So I was wondering if you’d like to come when I do. Eventually. It’s nothing big, just some drinks at the bar.” Kihyun murmurs, and there’s always been something homely in the way his voice sounds when he’s on the verge of falling asleep. There’s a rustle over the line, it must be him pulling the covers over himself. Hyungwon wonders if he still sleeps in the same position and has the urge to find out.

“How many people will be there?”

“Well, it’s not like there’s really anyone other than you three I could invite. Everyone else I could have already left not long after you - last I heard Yoongi was in America producing. I think I might ask Jackson if he’d like to come, but then again I don’t think I could handle him and Jooheon together. Then...”

Silence. Awkward and sticky.

“I don’t think there’s anyone else that likes me enough.” Kihyun was the kid that everybody and nobody liked all at once - it wasn’t as if he actively got on everyone’s bad side, but they just didn’t know him enough to care.

Hyungwon had. He’d cared so much that it had been his downfall.

“Surely…”

“No one. There’s no one.” Kihyun says, letting out a heavy sigh. “I’ve only really talked to Jooheon and Changkyun since high school. Everything else has just been those few awkward moments when they come into work. But it’s fine. I don’t. I don’t care about them.”

Hyungwon doesn’t care about them either.

He doesn’t care about people who didn’t care about him. He doesn’t care about people that hurt him, or Kihyun, or anyone else.

“I’ll come.” Hyungwon grunts, “I don’t mind if I have to stay later than I was meant to - I’m coming.”

“Goodnight, Hyungwon. It’s getting late and I have work in the morning.” Kihyun’s voice is soft, warm, and it washes over Hyungwon’s body in soothing waves. Once upon a time he might have jerked off to that tone, quick and shameful underneath the covers in the dead of night.

Hyungwon nestles into his pillow, legs tucked up around him, feels the imaginary weight of a thin arm around his waist. “Goodnight, Kihyun.”

 

“Hoseok, Hoseok, listen to me.” There’s a sharp tut from the other end of the line, stopping Hyungwon dead in his tracks. It’s the kind of tut he associates with a shoot gone wrong, a client disappointed, or skipping a session with Hyunwoo for the second time in a week. It’s the kind of tut that makes him feel a little sick with anticipation.

“No, you listen to me, Chae Hyungwon. I pulled a lot of strings to make these two weeks work. You had a fucking runway with Alexander McQueen. _McQueen_. And I managed to kiss enough ass to rearrange, to keep you in the agency’s good books, but asking for more than that is just impossible.” Hoseok says, voice sharp, but he’s not yelling. He never yells.

“Hoseok,” He pleads, “This is my best friend I’m talking about. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

“There’s a fitting on Monday for the Jean Paul Gaultier runway on Friday morning and a shoot on Tuesday for Switch. By the way you should thank me for that because they usually only use models within their company. Wednesday’s when I’ve booked you in at a dermatologist, who knows how your skin’s been doing. Then you’re off the rest of Friday and the weekend. But, need I remind you that you didn’t go home for your best friend. You went home for your mother.”

“But-”

“No buts. Do whatever you’d like after the runway as long as you’re back here in time for training with Hyunwoo. I hope you’ve been keeping your diet and training regimen somewhat the same. It’s important you don’t backslide.”

“I _know_.” His voice is starting to take on that whining tone that Hoseok hates - he reels it in for his own sake. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s on Friday night so I can make it, I swear.”

“You’d better rush.” Hoseok is gentle, but stern. “If you want to make it in time, that is. Otherwise I don’t know how to help you. ”

 

Towards the end of the week, Hyungwon is curled up beside his mother, hand clasped in hers when she asks him if he’s met anyone while he’s been gone. It’s the first time she’s expressed interest in his life outside here and it’s so surprising that he nearly forgets to answer entirely.

“Well. I don’t really have time for people anymore.” He says in response. “Plus if I do, my manager insists on doing a background check. That’s usually enough to scare them away.”

“But… Have you? I hate the idea of you living all alone up there.” She squeezes his hand as tightly as she can manage, “I’m serious.”

“Nobody yet.”

“Well, make an effort. You’re clearly handsome enough if they’re putting you in all those fancy clothes.” There’s something familiar about the tone that takes him right back to being sixteen, alone in his room, with Minhyuk on the phone telling him he can do it, he’s enough, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says.

Minhyuk was the only one who’d really been there to tell him he could when no one else would.

“I might. One day.”

“You might end up like Kihyun.” She laughs but it’s scathing, “Or even worse, like those other friends of yours.”

 _Other_. She won’t even say their fucking names.

But he thinks that one day he _would_ like to be like Jooheon and Changkyun. They have everything they need in their little house, because they allowed themselves it. But Kihyun, god, Kihyun has kept tucked away so long that he’s forgotten what it’s like to let himself be happy.

“Jooheon and Changkyun are happy, Mum.” He says quietly, “I met up with them the other day and they’re… It’s really something to see how perfect they are for each other.”

Her face sours, and he remembers right then and there how much it had hurt the moment she even suspected him of being gay.

“Happy? I forgot you’re... I just hope at least Kihyun finds a nice girl to settle down with. Maybe Minhyuk would have.”

He pulls away, finds himself sitting at the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. It’s almost laughable, the irony of it. “Can we stop talking about it? How are you feeling?”

“I just want you to have a family, Hyungwon.” She reaches for his back instead.

“And who says they _don’t_ have one?” He finds himself yelling, recoiling from her touch, “What is so wrong with me? Why can’t you just love me as I am?”

“I didn’t want-” She wheezes, cutting the sentence off with a cough that forces blood from her throat.

And then she can’t stop. There’s nothing he can do but watch her heave and hack.

He decides that whatever she says, he will take it. It doesn’t have to be for long, but it’s all he can do.

  

He walks into his mother’s room the day before he’s scheduled to go home to find her lying motionless. When he calls her name, she doesn’t respond.

There’s a single sickening moment where he thinks this is it, she’s really gone, but when he reaches to find her pulse he finds it. Weak, fluttering like a caged bird, but it’s there.

He calls an ambulance and sits with her until it arrives, and then he follows behind in his car.

Her doctor says there’s nothing more they can do. Hyungwon watches her body cool, numb, until he has to go. It doesn’t seem real right until he walks into the house and finds her bedroom sterile and empty.

Instead of waiting around for the few hours he has left, he packs his things up.

He attends the funeral, and as soon as her casket hits the ground, he gets into the rental car and drives all the way to the airport in silence. Changkyun, Kihyun, and Jooheon all send texts expressing their condolences, and he doesn’t know what to tell them in response, so he turns his phone off instead.

 

“Ah, I’m glad to have you back.” Hoseok says when he picks Hyungwon up from the airport, pulling him into a brief hug. “I was _bored_ , can you believe that? You can only work out so much, you know.”

Hoseok continues to ramble as he expertly weaves his way through the bustling crowd, hand tucked into the crook of Hyungwon’s elbow. He feels so out of practice with people, like he’s a tourist in his own damn city. Like the apartment he bought the second he had enough to is a hotel - he has to figure out where to sit and where to sleep and where the fucking towels are when he bought them himself.

“Mum’s dead.” He says finally when Hoseok has talked himself breathless, and the response is immediate: he pushes them both into a tiny alcove, and with all the gentleness he has in his body, turns around and shifts Hyungwon into his arms, tucking his face into the hollow of his neck.

“Oh, god, Hyungwon, I’m so sorry.” Hoseok whispers, rushed, eyebrows furrowed, “Listen - I really am sorry, I pushed you when - when you were hurting, and I didn’t think about what you were going through. We can cancel your schedule next week. You can go to that birthday thing. It’s fine.”

Perhaps this was what he’d been afraid of the most when he heard of what was happening to her. He was most afraid of what would come after.

When he’d been so disconnected from her, never mind the father he still doesn’t even know, he never had a chance to let her engrain herself into his heart the way she was supposed to. What comes after is blank guilt, the knowledge that he should feel something but inability to do so. He wants so desperately to miss her. He wants so desperately to feel as if the world has robbed him of something vital, yet all he has left in his bones is sick relief that she’s not in pain any more.

“Don’t cancel anything.” He nearly pleads when the heat of Hoseok’s body becomes unbearable, “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Is his response, cautious and careful. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for, even if I said otherwise last time we spoke.”

“I’m okay now. I just need normal.”

The feeling of Hoseok’s arms around him becomes too much quickly - even though they usually don’t hug. Something within him has changed enough that Hoseok’s usual babying feels wrong. It’s an ill-fitting garment in a runway he’s late to. Something has to change.

“Can I drive?” He asks, and watches Hoseok blink a little in confusion. “Don’t worry, I won’t dent your precious car or anything like that.”

“I suppose so.”

Hoseok hovers by the kitchen counter as Hyungwon tries his best to make an acceptable dinner for them both from the few things he has in his cupboards. He hovers, and he watches like a hawk as if he thinks there’s going to be hidden cameras somewhere.

“You know I could make dinner for us, if you want.” He chews his lip as Hyungwon roughly chops one of the few surviving onions into chunks. “I don’t mind. It’s kinda my job.”

“I want to.” He throws them into a pan, the sizzle nearly drowning out the sound of the television playing quietly in the living room.

“But you don’t cook.” Is all he has to offer in reply, and Hyungwon shrugs.

“I should start.”

 

“Sorry for not texting back earlier.” His phone is perched in between his ear and his shoulder as he pours milk into his and Hoseok’s coffee later that night. “Didn’t really know what to say.”

Kihyun laughs breathlessly, “I’m just surprised you called first.”

“Surprised myself too. How was your day?”

 

“I’m coming back for Kihyun’s thing.” He mumbles, listening to Jooheon and Changkyun shuffle around, presumably on their couch. Hoseok is still watching with an expression of confused pride. “Thought I’d let you know so you don’t just assume I ditched.”

There’s an audible grin when Changkyun says, “I don’t think you would. Other people, maybe, but not him.”

Changkyun’s right.

 

It’s only when Hoseok is slipping his shoes on in preparation to leave that he voices what’s obviously been on his mind for awhile.

“You seem happier.” He looks Hyungwon over once, eyes fond, “I know it’s probably bad of me to say since… Uh, you’re gonna be back on your usual diet again now anyway but… You look healthier.” He reaches for Hyungwon’s shoulders.

“I’m happy you got to do this if it did you good.”

Hyungwon looks down, scuffing his toes on the carpet. There’s a loose thread on the hem of his jeans. “It wasn’t the happiest place to be, but there were people there that I’m glad I met again.”

For a moment they’re quiet, and then Hoseok is searching within his eyes for an answer. “Do you love him?”

There’s no question of who else it could be, and there’s no point hiding it. So he nods. “I don’t think I ever stopped.”

“Then I trust you to make the decision that will be best for you. Whatever that is, I’ll support you. Hyunwoo said there’s always a position for me at his gym if I need it.”

_Bet there’s a lot of positions Hyunwoo has especially for Hoseok._

“Thank you.”

“Good night, Hyungwon.”

“Good night, Hoseok.”

 

When Hyungwon is sure Hoseok is gone, he goes into his room and pulls a blanket over his head. The apartment is still so cold, even after hours of being home with the heating on.

He sits in his bed and stares into the darkness, thinking about his mother.

A single memory detaches itself from the cluster of noise buzzing around in the centre of his skull and drifts in front of his eyes.

The first birthday he remembers: his mother placing a store-bought cake on the kitchen counter with six lit candles stuck neatly in the top. He blows them out and she claps, wide smile splitting her face in half. She was beautiful when she smiled, but eventually he stopped seeing it enough to notice.

Another: His first day of high school. Waking up to a note on the counter. _‘Have a good day! Love you.’_ A single cupcake wrapped in clingfilm beside the note.

Getting his license. Coming home to tell her. She smiles and tells him she’s proud, before turning back to her work.

Feeling Kihyun slip his hand into his own one day when they’re walking home. Seeing her watching through the front window. He opens the front door after saying goodbye to find her walking into her bedroom.

Asking her if she thinks he could make it as a model. She laughs and says he should think more realistically. Beside him, Kihyun laughs with her.

Packing his things into his car before he leaves. She has tears in her eyes as she hugs him, tells him to come visit when he can. Tells him she loves him. He carefully shrugs her arms off under the guise of pulling his sweater off before he says all the necessary things. _‘I will. Me too. Love you.’_

A fat teardrop rolls from the corner of his eye and down his cheek, drips off his chin onto his forearm. He puts his head in his hands and cries until he can’t anymore. And then he stands up, wipes his eyes and washes his face with cold water. When his face doesn’t feel as hot and swollen anymore, he crawls under his covers and sleeps. 

 

The fitting goes well, the shoot goes well, everything goes fucking well because that’s just the way things go. The designer tells him he’d prefer if he was able to lose a little bit of weight before the show, which he knows is less of a preference and more job security. He knows he’ll be able to - he hasn’t even gained that much anyway.

Everything is just fucking dandy.

He calls Kihyun a few more times that week, on his way back from Hyunwoo’s, or after he’s hopped out of the shower. He calls him because he can, and because he’s tired of having an empty apartment. Briefly, he thinks that this place would be a lot better off if there was someone else to warm it. And then fights the urge to slap himself for it.

_(“Yeah, I’ll be there on time. Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”)_

Hoseok makes sure he’s sticking to his schedule to the minute, but treats him gingerly. He wishes they could go back to how it was before, when he was cracking jokes on the way to the airport because he knew Hyungwon wouldn’t get angry.

It’s only when his alarm goes off at three on the morning of the runway that he really realises he’s going back again. He’s going back to his career, and then then he’s going to see Kihyun. The thought of it all sets off a strange neon cocktail of emotion within him. He’s usually not the type to get butterflies anymore, or maybe he’s just not interested in the people he fucks, but either way the sudden feeling of feathers brushing inside his ribcage is surprising. Catches him off guard, even.

The runway is important but not so important that he thinks about it more than necessary. The only thing on his mind is how long it will take him to get to his car once it’s over. How quickly he can shed the clothes in favour of his own and escape. How long the flight will take. Fortunately, there’s one right after he finishes. Less fortunately, it’s the only one of the day.

As a result of blessed Hoseok’s foresight, he’s only needed for half the show. He’ll get back hours earlier than needed if all goes according to plan, which might give him the time to work out what exactly he needs to tell Kihyun.

And then the fuckup of all fuckups has to happen, and one of the models for the second half gets food poisoning. He overhears the poor dude’s manager shrieking into his phone, face swollen, red, and doughy.

 _“I thought I told you not to fucking_ **_eat_** _, didn’t I? If you hadn’t fucking eaten we wouldn’t_ **_be_ ** _in this position!”_

Hoseok looks at him, pity all over his face and says, “You’re the same size as him, Hyungwon. I’m sorry but we don’t really have any other options right now.”

So he obediently slips backstage again and lets them refresh his makeup - it’s less bold than the original extreme red smokey eye that went right up into his eyebrows. This time it’s just pink and gold eyeshadow and clear glass tears glued to his cheeks. His lips are nearly glued together with all the gloss smeared across them by an overzealous makeup artist.

It seems to take an age to be ushered onstage, and then it’s time to become the professional he is. It’s time to let his mind blank, walk smoothly, arms natural, gaze neutral. He forces himself into his image, and steps out onto the runway.

He is a mannequin; there is no Chae Hyungwon.

The second Hoseok gives him the okay to go, he’s gone. He doesn’t even stop to scrub off the makeup, just leaps into the car in his sweats.

_(“Yeah, I’ll be there on time. Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”)_

He thinks of calling ahead to let the others know he’ll be late, but that plan flies out the window when he looks for his phone and realises it’s in his bag, all the way back in the trunk. Time is scarce, so he just hurries as best he can.

He’ll make it. He has to.

If he doesn’t then there’s no doubt in his mind that no amount of grovelling or pleading or complaining will earn any forgiveness from any of them. It’s not just about losing Kihyun - but the others too. The thought of having them thinking he’s an arrogant prick right until they forget he even exists sends a curl of nausea through his gut.

In the end all he can do is keep watching the clock inch closer and closer to four, then five, lower lip caught between his teeth. He chews until he bleeds, and even then he can’t stop. He gnaws as the sun starts to dip below the horizon, washing him in pink and orange, yet he can’t find it within himself to be captured by the view like he usually would be.

Instead it’s just muted panic that’s buried so deep it’s tremors are barely felt.

Kihyun was always the one who kept him in check as a teenager, made sure he got places on time, made sure he was eating enough, made sure he wasn’t keeping himself up too late. He’d been the one who knew how to calm his thoughts enough. Without Hyungwon even noticing he’d worked his way into his chest and dug himself out a little hollow to curl up in.

And the worst part of it was that he never even fucking realised what he was doing.

Every time Hyungwon looked at him he saw love, oblivious but still love. It was the warm kind of love that felt like a mug of hot tea when he came in from the cold. It was the heaters in car going full blast while Kihyun drove him home even though their houses were on opposite sides of town. It was spending his seventeenth birthday huddled under blankets on the roof, sharing stolen cigarettes and stolen whiskey, giggly and flushed.

It’s nearly six and he should have been there by now.

By the time it hits seven, he knows, he just knows he’s going to be late. He hopes Kihyun will forgive him.

(“I don’t really think we’ll be there long. I have work in the morning, and technically Jooheon will be on the clock. So. We won’t be there long.”)

He curses at himself as he pulls into a gas station. Stupid.

He sees the sign announcing the town at ten to ten and breathes a sigh of relief. It’s been four hours since he was supposed to be there, but he’s there. He’s there. He can make it up to them somehow. It will be fine.

Kihyun’s present is tucked away in his back pocket, envelope probably crinkled, but he can feel the shape of it enough to reassure that he hasn’t forgotten it.

He pulls up outside the bar and nearly trips in his haste to get in there.

It’s almost empty, but the table they once frequented is not.

“Fuck, sorry, I’m here.” He wheezes, clutching onto the counter as he pulls himself into an empty seat. Sweat sticks his shirt to his arms and back. He’s sure there’s smudges of mascara underneath his eyes. Changkyun clucks his tongue, avoiding meeting his eyes.

“He already left.” Jooheon says, shaking his head. “So what’s your excuse, huh? Couldn’t be bothered? Is that it? You know he just kept - kept waiting and waiting for you. Someone would open the door and he’d snap up so fast.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jooheon takes a sip of his beer while Changkyun chews on a straw. Their hands are linked underneath the table, not visible unless you were really looking.

Finally, Changkyun nudges Jooheon, giving him a look.

“You should be saying sorry to him, not us. You let him down more.”

“I got held up. Some guy got food poisoning and I had to take his place.” He rubs his eyes, already standing again. He needs to get to Kihyun’s as soon as he can to make it right.

Changkyun prods his hip on his way past, slipping his hand into his back pocket. “You could have texted him though. You wouldn’t have fucked up nearly as bad if you’d just said you were gonna be late. Oh, what’s this?” His fingers catch on the envelope and Hyungwon bats his hand away from it.

“None of your business.” He shakes his head, “And, I know. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t want to let him down.”

“Doesn’t matter whether you wanted to or not - you still did.”

 

He digs his phone out of his bag, right down in the bottom, and dials a number he’s had memorised for days.

Kihyun picks up after three rings, in the exact gap between the third and fourth. He sniffs, as if he’s trying to sound disdainful but it comes across more watery than anything.

“What do you want?” He spits, voice laced with venom, “Calling me up to fuck me over again? It’s so goddamn hilarious, isn’t it? Big shot city boy makes the small town loser think he cares just for a laugh. That’s a good headline there.”

“Don't be mean.” He shuffles in place, sticks a hand into his pocket for lack of anything to do with his nervous hands. “And that was never my intention. I… I just. Come outside please.”

Kihyun scoffs, “You really think I’m gonna fall for that? You’re up in your fancy apartment having the time of your life.”

“I know I deserve it. I should’ve called when I realised how late I'd be but… I don’t know why I didn’t. I’m dumb. Kihyun, please,” His voice wavers, and Kihyun sucks in a big shuddery breath. “Please just trust me.”

“I don’t want to trust you. I thought,” He swallows audibly, “If you’re telling the truth, you still really hurt me tonight.”

“You don’t have to come out, but I want to at least give your present to you in person.” The window to the right of the front door flicks on, visible from cracks in the curtains, and the silhouette inside shifts, faces the window. Turns around, faces the window. Walks away, walks back. The curtain shifts to the side and Kihyun peers out at him.

“God, you really are here.” He mumbles, eyes still locked on his, “You’re… You’ve got shit all over your face.”

“Didn’t have time to take it off before I left.”

“Wait outside.” The light flicks off again, and Kihyun hangs up on him. Anticipation hissing through his veins, he waits. He waits for god knows how long, an awful feeling in his gut that tells him Kihyun probably isn’t planning on coming out at all.

So he sits down on the hood of his car, stares at his hands as if they hold the answers and tries not to stew in his own ever-pressing guilt. If he’d just been what his mother wanted maybe he wouldn’t have been in this situation - maybe he wouldn’t have to hide his grief underneath his covers, like it’s something shameful.

_What’s shameful is not being able to admit you miss her._

_What’s shameful is not admitting that for all her problems, you loved her enough to crave approval._

A tap on his shoulder nearly scares the skin off him, but when he looks back it’s Kihyun, beautiful, pink-cheeked Kihyun, bundled up in a ragged coat too big for him and plaid pajama pants. There’s a moment of silence while they process each other, processing what they’re feeling, and then Kihyun is smiling this soft little smile that makes Hyungwon’s heart thump.

“Your face.” He offers in way of explanation, “I couldn’t really see what was on it from back there and now I can.”

Breath hitching as Kihyun leans in curiously, Hyungwon tries to keep his face neutral. Tries not to betray any of the emotions threatening to spill if he doesn’t keep them clasped in. A glass tear is prodded with the delicate tip of a finger. The gloss on his eyelid is gently patted, before Kihyun pulls back.

“It’s pretty.”

“They,” Hyungwon stutters, playing with his own fingers, “They use good artists at the shows.”

“I can see that.” Kihyun limps over to slide up onto the hood beside him, yet with so much distance between their thighs, and his legs dangle so much more than Hyungwon’s do. “I think,” He starts, “I think we should talk this over.”

 

_“Kihyun, can we talk? Away from the others, I mean.”_

_“Sure. Why?”_

_“Just wait a second.”_

_Deep breaths._

 

God, the end of his nose is rosy, and his eyes are liquidy. He looks as if he’ll start to spill over himself if he pulls his hands away from his own face any time soon.

“I think we should too.”

“Let me go first.” Kihyun mumbles, face turned away. “I lied. That night. When you said -”

 

_“Kihyun, this has been a long time coming, really. Since we first met.”_

_“Hyungwon, please don’t do what I think you’re about to do.”_

 

He stops, ears blaring crimson, but he just swallows and continues. “I lied. I know what I said to you but it was a lie.”

“Kihyun-”

“I knew you were leaving and I didn’t want to get hurt. I didn’t want to hurt you either.”

_“Kihyun-”_

“Hyungwon, I think that after all this time I still- I still-”

 

_“I don’t know when it started, but believe me I tried to stop.”_

_“Hyungwon, please.” Tears, fear, trembling hands._

 

“I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m so fucking sorry, it was the worst thing I’ve ever done. My biggest mistake.” Kihyun closes his eyes, “I regretted it but. I didn’t want you to leave.”

“What are you trying to say?” Heart throbbing, he slides down onto the asphalt and walks around to see Kihyun clench his fists in his pants. His knuckles are white.

 

_“Kihyun, I’ve liked you for so long. I can’t bear the thought of leaving without telling you.”_

_“But that’s the whole fucking point of tonight! You leaving! Celebrating your marvellous fucking achievement of being able to escape this godawful place and letting you cut yourself loose from_ _us for-fucking-ever!” Anger, trembling lips, gritted teeth. “I can’t do this. I’m going back to the others.”_

 

“I’m trying to tell you I love you. Still. Even after everything I said. Even after all this time.”

For one honey-thick moment, air stops being enough to feed his lungs. He gapes, trying to find exactly what he needs to breathe, head full and heavy. Finally, his chest gasps in enough oxygen to snap back into motion.

“But. You said-”

 

_“Sorry, I just don’t feel the same.”_

 

“I lied, don’t you understand? I’ve always- Ever since-” Suddenly, Kihyun looks directly at him, pretty mouth parted just so. He just stares, eyes roaming over Hyungwon’s face as if it’s the last time he’ll see it. “For sixth months after you left, I thought about you every day. And then I had to accept that you weren’t planning on talking to us again.”

“I thought I was over it. And then I came back and saw you again and realised I wasn’t.”

“You’re going to leave again. This might as well have never happened.”

For all the terrible things he’s done to Kihyun, through breaking his phone screen two minutes into their first meeting to breaking his heart just by confessing at the wrong time, he thinks the cruelest thing he could ever do is not give him the envelope in his back pocket before this continues.

So he slides it out and hands it over, ignoring Kihyun’s noise of confusion.

“I told you, I wanted to give you your present in person.”

Torturously slowly, Kihyun slips his fingernail underneath the seal and peels the thin layer of paper back.

He tugs the folded paper out and slowly opens it, curiosity alight in his eyes, and then he’s putting his hand over his mouth, tears in his eyes.

“I mean, like, you know, you can say no if you don’t want to. I just thought… You might like it.” He panics, because Kihyun isn’t supposed to cry.

“I just. I don’t know if I can. This is big, Hyungwon.” He turns the key over in his fingers, “I don’t want to impose on you or anything like that. I might not even be able to afford it. Probably can’t.”

Of course, he doesn’t take ‘handouts’ because he feels as if he’s a burden, as if others are obligated to do these things. Hyungwon wants to take his face in his hands and tell him just how much he matters.

“Hyunwoo pays well. He’s been needing a new receptionist for god knows how long.” He leans in, “I’m not saying that you should if you don’t want to. But if you do, I’d really like that.”

“Are you sure?” He asks, nose barely brushing Hyungwon’s as he looks up, “Really sure? One hundred percent?”

“I wouldn’t offer unless I wanted you to.”

They’re so close now that Hyungwon is sure he can feel every bat of Kihyun’s long pretty eyelashes whenever he blinks, like there are tiny puffs of air stirred up by them.

What he can really feel is Kihyun’s warm breath washing over his face. It smells overpoweringly of mint. Like the toothpaste the Yoo’s always had multiple boxes of under their bathroom sink.

“Did you brush your teeth before you came out here?” He asks, and Kihyun flushes.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Red, creeping into Kihyun’s ears and cheeks, all up his chest. He’s ruddy with embarrassment as he looks away and says, very simply, very quietly, “Because I was hoping you might kiss me.”

_I might._

“If you want me to, I’m not complaining.” He turns his face and Kihyun closes his eyes, poised. “I never, um, I should have said this before, but I think I love you too.”

“Hyungwon.”

“But first, my offer.” He puts his hands on Kihyun’s waist, drags him right in close. Behind the flimsy layers of cotton separating their chests, he can feel Kihyun’s heart beating wildly through his ribs. “Will you take it?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Hyungwon bridges the gap.

 

 

“Where are you running off to now?” Seokjin asks, in the middle of having his makeup scrubbed off by his scowling manager. Seokjin has always liked having people fussing over him, Jaehwan included. There are handfuls of crumpled makeup wipes stained red and purple piled in his lap. “Don’t forget to tone and moisturise afterwards, by the way.”

_(“Yes, I’m on it! Sheesh!”)_

Hoseok lets out a full-bodied laugh as he holds out Hyungwon’s coat for him to slide into. “He’s got places to be, people to see.”

“You’re usually in no rush to get clean your face.” Jaehwan pinches Seokjin’s cheek to get him to stop moving, “Today you’re not even leaving time for that. Someone’s acting a little, dare I say… _dodgy?”_

Even with Hyungwon’s icy glare needling into the side of his cheek, Hoseok giggles another loud obnoxious, knowing giggle. He leans in and whispers something into Seokjin’s ear, something that sends him into peals of laughter. He then relays this to Jaehwan, who drops everything to cackle alongside the other two. In that moment, Hyungwon really, truly hates the three of them.

“What. What, Hoseok. What did you tell them?”

“Just said there’s a special someone who you need to pick up. A special someone who likes it when you come straight from shoots all prettied up.”

This one had featured Seokjin and Hyungwon laying amongst great swathes of blue filmy fabric. It took far longer than he wanted it too, and now he’s late.

“I have to go.” Hyungwon grits, sliding his shoes on, “Bye. Also, fuck all of you.” He leaves their laughter behind as he walks out to the car park.

“Sorry I’m late. Shoot was longer than I thought it would be.” He winds down the window on the other side of the car and Kihyun shrugs, arms clasped around his backpack as he opens the door to slide in.

“Don’t worry. Hyunwoo was trying to rope me into working out with him.” He leans over the console to give Hyungwon a peck on the cheek.

“Did he succeed?”

“Well,” Kihyun smiles slyly, “I guess you’ll have to find out.”

The wind whistles through the open window as they turn down a side alley. Somewhere, a dog barks, and as if unconsciously, Kihyun smiles.

“He’s thinking of starting me on some physio kinda shit. For my leg.” He continues as Hyungwon hums along to the song on the radio.

“Oh?”

“To try and get rid of the limp.”

He reaches over to lay his hand over Kihyun’s thigh, squeezing gently. “I’m proud of you.”

Kihyun pats Hyungwon’s hand, shrugging again, “When’s our flight again?”

“Seven.”

They’re going back. Because Kihyun demands they do every few months, or as often as they can make it. They go back for a weekend just to check in on everyone. They drop in on Changkyun and Jooheon (Hyungwon will probably keep suggesting they move up. He knows a guy who knows a guy in the radio business, after all. Hoseok would be pleased to get them in contact with the other Hoseok, surely). They drop in on Kihyun’s parents, who give them dinner and ask how they’re doing.

They drop by Hyungwon’s mother’s grave to put down a handful of peonies that grow in Changkyun’s (he refuses to let Jooheon anywhere near it) small garden out the front of their house.

They drop by everywhere that needs them to visit and then they go home, to where they’ve expanded to perfectly fit the space. And then they crawl into bed, into each other’s arms, and they sleep.

 


End file.
